I’m in Austin for an in Monday out Tuesday trip, but there’s nothing like being in a different city to make a run a little better. At 6:30am it was pretty damned dark out. Would this mean having to fight my hate of treadmills?

But after a light breakfast, at 7:30 it was light enough, though gray and perhaps rainy cold…. but 41 does not feel that cold compared to home.

Ran down Jacinto to the trail along Town Lake, a great running route. Just going easy, ignoring the little old ladies and crippled snails running past me. That last climb up Jacinto was an, er… nice way to finish.

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Well, it has been 2 weeks of blissful non running, the shoes were sitting in the closet, still sporting the timer tag from the half marathon. I’d been doing some self beating up feeling like I had not run very strongly the whole route, and had to wake up and realized that all I needed to accomplish was finishing.

I’m never going to run a Boston pace, never going to blaze across the line in glory, but finishing a 13.1 mile run is something like only 1% of the people do (according to my coach, who sent a very encouraging email).

And yes, my colleagues online have called my bluff on all my “I Hate Running” attitude- if you hate it why are you doing it, they tweet.

There is a point. I don’t really like running, but doing it makes me feel healthier, and has done some good with my long term blood sugar levels. And it does feel damne good to cross that line, no matter the form.

So I want to see over the next week how it feels, and I am eyeballing a possible half marathon in April.

Today I just went out casually, doing a short run out on the muddy streets, among a lot of snow still sitting on the ground. The temperatures were nice, 50 degrees and sunny.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

This, for me, is the nice part of running.

Being done. Looking back on it.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Conditions were perfect today, at the start at 6:30am it had to be close to 50°F and must of peaked in the 70s during the day. I was surprised at how many people were cold, shivering, huddled in front of generators for heat; I was comfortable, and if anything, you want to start out a bit underdressed as the body heats up.

With the staggered start, it was almost 9:00 by the time I ran under the start line, trying not to lauch too hard at our Senatorial greeter, maybe politicians should really “run” to get elected?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Today’s experience was mixed. I went out feeling great, and was doing good 10:30 paces til about mile 7, when I tooka first walk break, and at about mile 10, I was feeling the signs of low blood sugar bonking me. I had to slow down to take some glucose tablets, grab the sweetened sports drink, and I shut my insulin pump off, but it just sapped me of energy, and the last 3 miles were more walking than strong running.

And I was so excited to see my friends Lisa, Psyan, and Devon waving wildly as I went by at 59th Street- thanks for coming out to show support! That boost got me up the next mile. Devon got a picture of me smiling, hardly looking like a guy who hates running.

But I finished at 2:41, far from my best time, but also far from the worst. Without the low blood sugar, I ought to have come in in around 2:25 or 2:30 easy. It all counts as having it ran, run, and done. And nothing beats that thrill of finishing.

For fun, or maybe distraction, I carried by small, old Canon pocket camera, and tried to capture the look of the experience by holding the camera chest high with my right hand, and taking a photo about everytime my music changed on the ipod. I also took my own photo, by while running, they way I did this was to rotate the camera over towards me, so my images are mostly upside down, somehow fitting. I mixed this into a movie :

Congratulations to all 30,000+ runners today, especially my fellow team-mates on Team Diabetes, and thanks also to Coach Dave for tireless effort in leading us, as wel as Brian and Jose for helping run the organizational aspects.

And thanks to everyone who sponsored me, the response rate to my early requests were astounding, and I was able to raise $2600 towards diabetes education and care.

Don’t ask me now about any future plans to run! I am just enjoying being done

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

It’s here, the night before the run. Everything is packed, timing chip hung on shoe, alarm clock(s) set. I’ll be getting up in time to get to ASU at 5:30am, hop on the school buses that take us to downtown Phoenix, and hang around for the race start. Having done this 3 times before, I know what to expect (and not to try peeing in ther parking lot, I got nailed by a Court guard one year).

I’m eager to see how it goes this year; my training has been fair, but I’ve not gotten in all the longer runs, and I am not having any dreams of running this one faster than any previous one. I’m aiming to finish, period.

The last time I ran (full marathon in 2008, that is one thing I shall never do again), I carried a phone with me, and even managed to send a few twitter messages (once while waiting for a bathroom, 2 while doing a walk break). This time I am not taking a phone; I have the iPod Nano for music and Nike+ tracking, and I prefer not to carry much extra. I am, however, going to try taking my old Canon pocket camera (fits in the hand well) and hoping to document the journey… I am thinking it it will give me something to distract my mind,

I did, however, sign up for a service that is supposed to send text messages of my status to a fewfriends, and my sister in Baltimore. Apparently, it is able to track the chip thing on my shoe. Two of my friends will be on the course, and this will help them know when I am getting close, and they may even tweet out my status for me.

I’m just focusing on getting to that lovely finish line.

I want to send a thanks to all the people who sponsored my run for Team Diabetes, where I was able to raise $2610 for the American Diabetes Association, most of it coming in the first few weeks I sent out requests (I begrudgingly admit that facebook was pretty effective).

I wonder what the next blog post will say?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL)

The Team D training schedule called for a 7 miler yesterday, but I decided to cross train and did my work out playing in the snow atop the Mogollon Rim.

Today’s run was 6.66 miles, meaning I did my map measured neighborhood loop (3.33) miles twice, once in each direction. The weather was very pleasant for early January- temps in the mid 60s and sunny, so I was out there in shorts and a long sleeve top. Coach Dave’s message said to take this week’s long run at a slow pace, which is certainly not hard to do (e.g. its my regular pace).

And it was my main goal to use this run to finally calibrate my Nike+ on my iPod nano, haivng finally figured the right key press combo to get the screen at the end of a workout to calibrate the device to a known distance. So I got the buttons right- press menu to Stop Workout then press and hold the center button to get the calibrate screen. And I was set to go, all I needed to do was to dial in the 6.66 miles down from the 7.52 it incorrectly listed– and damned if while using the click wheel, my tired fingers slipped before dialing to down to 6.66 (I dont even know where it was at, maybe 6.9).

You only get one chance to do this, there is no way back to the calibrate screen.

I’ve railed on enough about this, but this interface majorly sucks. There is no forgiveness for fiddling with buttons at the end of a run, when my dexterity is far from on target.

Oh well, at least I got in a good distance the devil’s distance of 6.66….

I’ve been riding the express Excuse Train, actually, maybe upgrade to the Excuse Jet Liner First class, not running one centimeter since last week’s 12 mile long run.

I could hold out no longer, and avoided the Big Train today given it is cold outside (32°F), late (4:30pm) and it was snowing. But I got done my usual neighborhood loop, for another reason… You see, I have been a bit lazy and for all my training up yp a week ago I admit being a

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Dyanna……

I’ve suspected my Nike+iPod was giving me more distance than I actually ran, and thus my paces were not as good as I thought. This was obvious when my runs with Team D of 5 and 12 miles came out as 5.7 and 13.7, so my actual distances were 87% of what the Nike+ was reporting.

I’ve known I needed to calibrate it, but kept thinking I needed to go to a track or something more accurate than what my car odometer might measure. But then, I did the revolutionary thing… I read the instructions. The manual says I can calibrate after finishing a run- right there ion page 13 it says:

To calibrate using your latest completed workout:
* iPod nano: Choose End Workout, then choose Calibrate. Set the correct distance you walked or ran, and press the Center button.

So I set my route using the tool on MapMyRun.com, which gave the route 3.33 miles (that matches well since the Nike+ reports it as 3.76 miles, so again, actual distance is 87-88% of actual).

I did the run, knowing I really wanted to finish it to get this calibration right…. and stop running a lie. It was not that bad running out there, except for knowing I was slowpoking it, but with the new running top, knit hat, gloves, new running pants, I was plenty warm.

I did the loop, pressed End Workout…. and then never saw any option to Calibrate as the instructions above said. To be sure, I did two more tries, turning on the Nike+, walking in a few circles, repeating the instructions…. and again never got the Calibrate option.

Only one expletive came out of my mouth…. oops, I am ying again, a few ripe words did get said in the direction of Beaverton, Oregon.

Choose End Workout, then choose Calibrate. Set the correct distance you walked or ran, and press the Center button.

So for now on I am using map tools to get the right distance; I did adjust my spreadsheet of running logs to reduce all previous runs to 87% of their Nike+ reported values.

But now I know the reason why I cant calibrate.

The printed directions are wrong. The directions I found online are slightly different. Rather than

Choose End Workout, then choose Calibrate. Set the correct distance you walked or ran, and press the Center button.

the ones online read:

1. Press the Center button, and choose End Workout.
2. At the Workout Summary screen, press and hold the Center button.
3. Choose Calibrate.
4. Select the actual distance you walked or ran, and press the Center button.

“Press and Hold” is rather different then “choose”.

I’m being rather picky, but the printed instructions are wrong. Waaaaaa.

No more running lies.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I’ve not run since last Wednesday’s long training, the 12 miler. This is, after all, part of the important “taper” down in training which Coach Dave says has been shown to be effective for the body repairing damage done by the months of training. I’ve taken a bit too much taper…

right down to zero.

Thursday I was still pretty damned sore from the long run. Friday and Saturday I “cross trained” by doing some intense physical activity- splitting, stacking and moving a 1/2 cord of firewood.

Yesterday, I finally got outside for a 90 minute slow hike up and down the Pine Trail, off of AZ 87 just south of Pine. I’d done this one last July, when I ended up running (hah) down the trail to avoid the thunderstorm that was coming,

The trail was super muddy, but I was blessed when I saw a big old full moon rise just over the edge of the Mogollon Rim:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

That was pretty damned amazing.

And tomorrow is Tuesday, which means I ought to be tapering up to the schedule! That is, if the forecast rain/snow showers is not too accurate…

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Jeremy Brooks

Today was the Big One, the Long Run, the Big Enchilada… the longest training run for Team Diabetes. I was glad I was down in Phoenix to run this, cause on my own, isolated, I might not have done it. Or maybe it was because I told a few people I was running a dozen miles today, that I did not want to blog a lame excuse.

So I ran my 12 miles today. I’ve fallen down this training season in November on my longer runs, so my previous longest run this season might be 7 or 8. Of course, two years ago, when I was training for the Full Monty, on this day I ran 20…, but believe me, this time around, 12 was enough.

This was at the most regular Team D running spot, Granada Park off of 20th Street and Glendale Ave, although it was my first time running there this year. The route is south and east along the canal, then divert first for a clockwise circuit around the Biltmore Circle loop (past those gargantuan super mansions of the rich and demented), then east still to 32nd Street, turn around and do the same Biltmore circle in the other direction, continue back to the starting point.. but continue north/west on the canal to Northern Ave, and then back to the starting point.

I’m done with relying on my Nike+ for accurate distance- the Nano serves as a clock and a music machine, but until I can get the darn thing calibrated better, its not good (it clocked my at 13.7 miles).

I did this pretty slow (actually that seems to be my only pace), but was happy to feel a few bursts of energy around 6, 8, 11 miles, but now it just seems a fog.

From here, training enters the taper mode, but with 12 done, 13.1 should not be a big deal.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

After yesterday’s run, it was nice to change up the routine with a hike at South Mountain Park in Phoenix. Its been a while since I’ve done a hike, and today’s walk with my friend Sian (we could walk from her house). We headed up the trail from 24th Street, a nice trailhead I’ve never even seen before, up the Mormon Trail to the junction with the National Trail, then up even further to the other end of the “Hidden Valley” trail.

This short little section is just a natural playground, with a narrow pass the requires a side way passage– called “Fat Man’s Pass” plus a few more passage ways that require crawling or sliding down granite boulders smoothed by seasonal floods.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

What a great break from running! I think the miles still count…

I’m spending a few days in Phoenix visiting with friends, and it worked well to catch today’s Saturday run with Team Diabetes, and it was the “holiday” run.

This meant instead of going for a set distance, our group was send otu for an hour afterward were we had a pot luck holiday breakfast. We met/started at the ADA office near 7th Street and Missouri, heading east on Missouri to 24th St. Supposedly, that is on the route of the full marathon, which means I ran on it two years agoi, but that whole experience is a hallucinogenic blur.

It sure was a lovely day, the thermometer said it was in the high 40s but sure felt warmer. A bunch of us took the option instead of looping back at 30 minutes to complete a loop by going south on 24th then west on Camelback, and then north again on 7th Street.

I had some bursts of feel good speed but settled into the regular slow cadence. My Nike iPod marked this as 5.7 miles, but I’ve been in denial that I know it is over estimating distance and meaning worse that my pace is slower than what Nike+ says. I ought to calibrate it on a track, but I shrug and say, “Well, I am looking at the improvement in pace, which says something”.

If I ever run again, I’ll likely switch to either w GPS watch thing (they still look bulky) or revert to running with my iPhone and use the RunKeeper app to measure distance.

This was a great day in getting to see people on the team, a few I know from years past, and a special treat to see the lady who’s spirit nver goes down, Dorothy, who must be in her 80s, and has walked every Team D marathon since they started. She recently took a spill and damaged her hip, but her eyes still twinkle with a lot of life energy.

I’ll be staying in town til I join the team Wednesday for the “long run”, our longest training run of the season, 12 miles for us halfies.

Not sure how ready for that O I am.